Fbi Giving Alon Murder Case ‘priority Attention’

The FBI told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency today that it has given the Alon murder case “priority attention” and is using its “full facilities” to track down leads. But according to special agent Thomas Farrow of the FBI’s Baltimore office who is in charge of the investigation, no specific motive has yet been ascribed to the killers of the 43-year-old Israeli Air and Naval Attache Yosef Alon outside-his suburban Bethesda, Md. home 10 days ago.

Farrow defined “full facilities” as meaning that “every office and every aspect of our organization is alerted and assisting in the investigation.” He said “my people are working around the clock literally every day to bring this case to a logical conclusion or until we run out of leads.”

He denounced a report in the Washington Post today that Montgomery County police had described the gun used in the killing as a 38 calibre pistol of foreign manufacture. The identification of the weapon was based on ballistics tests of the bullets that killed Alon, according to the Post. Farrow refused to say whether the report was true or false. “We are not interested in letting the subjects (of the FBI investigation) know what we are doing,” he said.

State Department spokesman Paul Hare refused today to discuss the murder. “I have taken refuge in the FBI,” he told newsmen.